Weblog Consulting Register Login Subscribe to Free Influx Emails Join our Facebook Group Follow us on Twitter Branding Street Cred Technology Lifestyle Style Entertainment Interviews Art InfluxTV Map Widgets RSS — All Subjects RSS — More Feeds

Search

Advanced Search

Contact Privacy Policy

There are a couple of interesting examples of the emergence of Twitter as a tool for creative collaboration.

Mike Skinner- a UK musician and the man behind The Streets, is actively using Twitter as a tool for song ideas and inspiration as The Guardian reports.

"The new Streets website - which is more of a blog, really - principally contains odd videos of swans dying and badly edited pieces about why Skinner doesn't like owning a phone. But it's also become a dumping ground for ideas - many of which have started out in the minds of Streets fans, not Skinner's.

Skinner, you see, has taken to replying to his followers' tweets in the form of a video blog. Some of these tweets have become songs, the most recent being Cinema Barz, which was posted last Tuesday, the result of Skinner answering followers @shetlandshaun, @bec_brough and @glory55, and incorporating their call and responses into the song.

It's likely just a way to pass the time, but it shows Skinner isn't using Twitter as an extension of ye olde subscription list, a platform from which to shout information. Skinner isn't just telling fans what he's up to; he's effectively writing music with them, including them in the creative process and creating an ephemeral rehearsal room of sorts. Admittedly, he's the keyholder - but it's an open-door policy. It's obvious the internet is what really excites him these days - on Sunday, when @clairethornhill asked if he thought he should be included in the "walk of stars" in Birmingham, he replied, "yes, but I want one in cyberspace first"."

Then there's Tim Burton, who's encouraging Twitter followers to contribute and add story ideas that build on each other. It's a technique favored by artists and called-"Exquisite Corpse". This is an idea that's designed to support his art show, rather than lead to the creation of an entirely new Burton product.

Twitter clearly has a "plasticine" like property which is it's appeal- it allows users to configure and construct ideas around the parameters of the technology.

This is the stuff that makes great brands, but one critical component here is that the brand gets out there and showcases this stuff and in so doing, encourages others to participate.

The opportunity for Twitter to become a very interesting creative platform, but it's going to require awareness and understanding. 

Posted by Ed Cotton Back in October 2008 we wrote about JR. Now he's all over the media because he just picked up the TED prize- awesome news.

Here's what we wrote back then.

JR is creating an impact in the street space with such scale and imagination that it puts advertising to shame. His massive portraits are of inhabitants of Brazilian favelas, Parisian ghettos and Palestinian towns. He's a graffiti artist who picked up a camera and the results of his work are extraordinary. He has a show in London at the moment- the first two images are from there and the final image is from the favela project he did in Brazil. He's work blends the best in photography with graffiti and social causes.







Posted by Ed Cotton Everyday it seems like a new canvas emerges that could provide a potential opportunity for engagement. Faced with the rapid pace of change, we sometimes forget about how we can use the technology that already exists, but in a better way.

A great example is how Arcade Fire, them again!, thought about the integration of art for the digital format. Understanding that the richness of the LP experience had long gone, they wondered how there might be greater interaction between music and art in the MP3 world. Their designer came up with a smart solution that has the potential to continually enhance the experience.



While the "sexy" thing might have been to develop on iPad application, this solution demonstrates an understanding of the "gap" that exists with existing technology in the user experience that can easily be enhanced with a little thought.

Via Creative Review

Posted by Ed Cotton I was fortunate enough to hear Stefan Sagmeister speak at Lucid NYC's event last week and it was impressive.

Stefan told us a story about his attempt to make a film about happiness and the journey he's been on to discover it and its secrets. This journey has taken him to remote parts of Indonesia and even happiness industry conferences. His basic conclusion is that there's nothing really that's going to make us happier than anything else; weather and wealth included. The secret lies in human's ability and willingness to adapt to circumstances.

However, despite his conclusion, Stefan has managed to carve out a unique space for himself, one that most creatives would envy. He tends to avoid corporate working choosing only to do the most interesting, creative, worthy and potentially happiness inducing projects there are out there.

His work has tended to focus primarily on the worlds of music, art, non-profits and public works. One great project was an assignment from an artist's widow to make her deceased husband famous, his solution started with a uniquely designed book of the artist's work, which caught everyone's attention and led to a documentary special about the artist on German television.

One of his most intriguing projects was an art assignment in Amsterdam, where he used the grid of a public square and 250,000 coins to make a statement about obsession.




Posted by Ed Cotton Belgian artist Luc Tuymans has been the talk of Europe for at least the last 5 years and has been described as Europe's greatest living artist after Gerhard Richter.

Now, thanks to the efforts of SFMOMA and others a retrospective of his work can be seen in the US.

It's work that on the surface challenges the conventions of painting, but more than that, uses art to provoke discussion about history and culture.

At first glance, it's hard to take in the work. The color palette is muted and depressed, there seems to be an artificial barrier between the canvas and the viewer, it's like he doesn't want you to get close.

There's one series of paintings of banal objects that are out of focus, blurred so that they look like fragments of our memories, but many of these have deeper stories behind them (that's Tuymans style); a body lying innocently on a couch turns out to be a murder victim, the portrait of a man that seems very ordinary, is in fact, a a cancer sufferer.

At its core, Tuymans best work deals with politics and history. There are two series that deal with World War 2; one with concentration camps and the other the broader theme of Nazism.

While many of these WW 2 paintings here are difficult to view, often being minimal and sparse, they all have deeper stories to tell,  but when viewed as a series, complete an arc.

In his architect series about Nazi Germany, there's a painting from a photo of Albert Speer on skis and a blurred out portrait of Himmler which render these key protagonists dangerously harmless and innocent. 

The work that explores the Belgian colonization of the Congo is perhaps the most impressive. It highlights the key motifs of the story by isolating the key players and covering the assassination of a leader and the exploitation of resources. It's also art that caused a political response, this series was first shown at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and caused ripples that forced the Belgian government to admit their role in assassination of the Congolese leader. 

American isn't spared as he explores the country post 9/11 with paintings that include a portrait of Condoleezza Rice and what appears to be a falling World Trade Center, but in reality is simply another demolition. Tuymans is telling us how we've all been manipulated by media repetition.

In a world where new, bright digital media is the "thing", Tuymans shows us that painting still has a potent role to play. He's using his art to challenge and warn us about the power of the diversity of media images that surround us. He's asking that   constantly question ourselves to find deeper meaning in these images.

Posted by Ed Cotton It seems that art has found it self in the same problem as advertising, it has to provoke in order to get people to pay attention.

Artists seem so desperate for attention, that they've got to come with ever more interesting ways of getting people to take notice.

They've got a hard balance to achieve between the spectacle and deeper meaning; if you push too hard for spectacle, the meaning can get lost. 

Turner Prize finalist, Roger Hiorns is an interesting case. He's big on the spectacle; his exhibit for the prize is the pile of dust that resulted from the destruction of a 747 jet engine.

The video below shows an installation he created in a disused London apartment using copper. It's quite a spectacle and certainly a brilliant idea on one level, but more than that, I am not sure.




Posted by Ed Cotton